In his RSC debut, the Metaphysical Physicist hopes to defend Christopher Paolini’s Eragon.
Because it’s what we do at college, I’ve had many a discussion with my friends about the merits of our various favorite books. In the course of these discussions, I’ve come across something that disturbs me. A great many of my friends are vehemently opposed to Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance cycle. Specifically, they dislike the first book, Eragon. This bothers me, as I rather like the series. Do I believe it is “great literature” or a “literary marvel”? No, I do not, but I do believe that it is a decent series, with substantial literary merit. I will attempt to write this post with as few spoilers as possible, but for an argument to carry weight, it must be supported by examples, and examples must come from the book, and are to some degree inherent spoilers. With that said, there are three major objections to the book that I will address:
11) The writing is immature.
22) The story is a direct rip-off of “insert older book here”
33) There is nothing original or thought provoking in the story anywhere
With regard to the writing, I will admit that there are valid objections to be made, but I would like to remind everyone that Inheritance in general and Eragon especially are books written for a younger audience. Yes it is at a low reading level, but that does not make the book un-enjoyable, nor does it detract from the merit of the story. Look at Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling makes booger jokes for crying out loud (See Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Chapter 10 “Eww… troll boogies.”). If your complaint is that the writing is immature, then I am sorry, you need to get over yourself.
There is more weight to the claim that the book is a “rip-off” of such and such other book. Anyone who is familiar with fantasy literature will notice parallels between Eragon and Lord of the Rings, or Eragon and Starwars, or Eragon and Anne McCaffrey, or Eragon and … ad nauseum. In the loosest of senses this is true. Eragon does draw some inspiration from the same source as all of those books, but it is not a rip-off of your favorite series. You see, there’s a concept that exists in literature called an archetype, or sometimes a motif. Given a few dozen motifs (for example: Wicked Witch, Cursed/Trapped Princess, Dashing Prince, Magic Sword, and Evil Dragon) you can reconstruct almost every fairy tale in existence. You might have heard of this concept under another name: Tropes. Let’s look at a couple that present themselves in Eragon shall we?
1 1) The Crotchety, Old as Dirt, Wise Mentor
Brom is (as far as we know at the star of the story) just a simple story teller in a small mountain village (and Ben Kenobi was just a mad old hermit). We later discover that Brom was much more. He was actually a Dragon rider (help me Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope). He even teaches Eragon his early lessons in sword play and magic (Feel the force flowing through you). Obviously, Brom is a direct rip-off of Obi-wan Kenobi right? Wrong! They are both examples of the hero’s mentor. They are members of an illustrious group whose roster includes names such as Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore, Gandalf the Grey, Merlin, Thom Merrilin (for you WoT fans), Master Bra’tac (Of Stargate SG1), and Uncle Iroh. (Spoiler: most of these guys die, or we think they’re dead at one point in time. Just like what happens with Brom and Obi-wan)
2 2) Super Special Awesome Sword (and it might even be magic)!
Zar’roc is a rider’s blade. It is nigh indestructible, its edge never needs sharpening, it is resistant to most magics, and the best part is that Zar’roc belongs to the man we are later lead to believe is Eragon’s father! Obviously this is a rip-off of Luke’s lightsaber! No, it’s a rip-off of Sting, no, it’s a rip-off of the Tessaiga from InuYasha! No folks, the special sword of awesomeness has roots as early as the story of King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone, then later with Excalibur (which was given to him by the Lady of the Lake, it was NOT the sword in the stone). The enchanted sword is one of the single most common plot devices in fantasy literature (and some sci-fi lit for that matter).
3 3) The Horde of Rampaging Monsters!
The Urgals are a direct rip-off of Tolkien’s Orcs! Except that they really aren’t. The horde of monsters or even just general villain mooks exists in any story with an organized (or even disorganized) mass antagonist. As far as the monstrous variety, there are orcs, trollocs, reavers, zombies, and darkspawn. As for the not so monstrous varieties, there are geth, vikings, celts, picts, other varieties of barbarians, stormtroopers, and of course, Nazis. I know, I know. You probably lost all interest at that but humor me for a second. In Captain America and Indiana Jones, Nazis are the villain horde that you love to see the hero smash through in droves. Stomtroopers? That was the name of the Nazi elite shock troops. Seriously, look at the hyenas in the Lion King. They fucking goose step!
Obviously, I can’t go over every single thing in the story, but I think you get the gist. Most of what people think is “ripped-off” is actually just an archetype or trope that is better known from another series.
If you haven’t read this series, and you do not want spoilers for it, please skip to the bottom of the article, because I am going to have to go into details of the story to prove my point.
Now, I warn you all, I’m about to get on my soap-box. At the beginning of the series, it does seem that the series is an almost box perfect sword and dragon story with a horde of nameless, faceless evil villains, the mentor and the magic sword, the completely evil empire and the small completely good resistance, plus the magic system where you say a spell to make the magic work. If you really believe this you have most likely did not read beyond the first or second book. If you only read the first book, then you have no right to criticize the entire series. That being said, as the series evolves, it begins to raise serious introspective questions.
The first thing I am going to mention is not completely unique, but is something that is rarely done. Remember that monstrous horde of ugrals? Well, in books 2, 3, and 4 you learn a lot more about them. You learn about their culture, about their history, about how they respect strength and honor. You actually get to see one of their villages and some of their women and children. They end up allying with the rebellion against the evil empire.
Second, the main character is required to wrestle with an interesting moral question. His teacher asks him to justify the rebellion against the empire. Why is he justified in continuing a war that will devastate the land, and kill thousands, most of whom are just trying to survive, when without the war those people would be leading a reasonably safe mostly normal life? If you’re interested in the answer he reaches, I recommend you read the books.
The third and fourth things revolve around magic and its use in the story. Have you ever wondered why a magic user would expend the effort to create a fireball when it would take so much less energy to just stop someone’s heart? It would be even better, if they knew enough anatomy, to just pinch off the carotid artery. It turns out that they can. The trouble is that to be able to do that to an enemy, you have to first kill the magicians that are protecting them. So, anytime a magician is killed an few hundred enemy troops could be killed almost instantly. The biggest reason that it isn’t done all the time is because few people know the body well enough to do it.
Finally, Inheritance addresses an issue I’ve rarely seen asked before. How do you uphold law and order in your society when part of your population can reshape the world around them with magic, and part of it can’t? Specifically, how can you do that without taking them away and locking them away from the rest of society just because they’re born with the ability to do magic?
It is questions and issues like this that make Paolini’s story unique and original. Yes, it is written at a low reading level. Yes, it uses a typical fantasy format, but that does not detract from the quality of the story, or the enjoyability of the book. If you’ve never read this series, I recommend trying it, and if you’ve only read the first book, try reading the others before you criticize it. Maybe you won’t like it, after all, not every book is for every person, but it’s something that I very much enjoyed, I would recommend you at least try it.
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